Fair Defense Project: Addressing the Lack of Defense which Leads to Unequal Sentencing
Key Stakeholders Find a Financial Benefit to the State in Ensuring the Constitutional Right to Counsel
BY DOMINIC GONZALES
Access to a lawyer when you are accused of a crime has always been viewed as a basic right in America, but increasingly, judges, prosecutors, jail administrators, and others recognize it is also cost-effective for those accused of a crime to have an attorney throughout the criminal process. For many low-level defendants, the costs of unnecessary incarceration (~ $42 per day) far outweigh the costs of paying a lawyer. Counties as big as Dallas and as small as Kaufman and Val Verde are shifting to public defender systems that make the process run more smoothly and process defendants more quickly without clogging up the county jails, which will also save taxpayers millions of dollars.
Solutions to jail overcrowding and defendants rights
Thanks to the partnership between TCJC and the Texas Fair Defense Project, many judges and county officials are coming to recognize how the high proportion of Texas defendants who face criminal charges without legal representation contributes more than was previously understood to the State’s over-incarceration crisis:
· In many counties, defendants never speak to a lawyer, waiting around in jail until they deal directly with prosecuting attorneys – then often losing their jobs in the process because of missed days at work, and thereby becoming unable to take care of their families. These practices also lead to a massive influx of individuals who, had they understood their rights, might have been diverted from jail to a range of alternatives without decreasing public safety.
· HB 1178 (Escobar, D-Kingsville; McClendon, D-San Antonio) – which passed with large bipartisan majorities in both chambers and was just signed into law by the Governor – will help end the practice of prosecutors seeking “waivers” of defendants’ right to counsel before they’ve talked to a judge, a practice that needlessly fills up the county jails because people don’t know what options they might have.
We’ve accomplished so much, but there’s much more work to be done!
TCJC’s Fair Defense Project processes individual defendant complaints, uses earned and grassroots media to distribute reform messages, provides technical assistance to the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense with respect to county grants and policies, and educates and mobilizes defense attorneys to combat unconstitutional practices in counties with the worst problems.
Last year, TCJC partnered with the Texas Fair Defense Project to undertake groundbreaking work to improve indigent defense systems in specific counties. In an unprecedented manner, we used tools normally reserved for “lawyer solicitation” (mailing representation solicitations to individuals on arrestee rosters) and adapted it to undertake a sophisticated public education campaign.
· Using this approach, we educated thousands of misdemeanor defendants about their rights, and ultimately several of them became plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Williamson County – the Texas county that has become notorious for denying defendants their constitutional right to a court-appointed attorney.
· Successful resolution of the lawsuit in favor of these plaintiffs will have serious ripple effects, improving practices in dozens of other Texas counties that utilize similar practices.
By working closely with the state agencies and lawmakers who oversee and regulate indigent defense – as well as by targeting counties where the worst actors routinely violate defendants’ rights – TCJC is laying the groundwork with this project for a long-term strategy to improve the quality of indigent defense in Texas, both by changing laws and policies as well as hearts and minds, and we invite judges, county officials, prosecutors, local officials, and anyone else concerned about these issues to join in this important task.
To assist us in our efforts to give everyone access to fair defense and improve our local court systems , contact Dominic Gonzales at